BIG BABY (2025)

Studio:   Brainstorm Media
Director: Spider One
Writer:   Spider One
Producer: Krsy Fox, Spider One
Stars:    Brandon Scott, Krsy Fox, Adam Marcinowski, Catherine Corcoran, Torio Van Grol, Kate Freund

Review Score:

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Summary:

Reality and fantasy blur for a struggling screenwriter who fears a fictional killer from his slasher script somehow came to life.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

Struggling screenwriter Adam Lewis becomes incensed while listening to a horror movie review podcast called “Blood Soaked,” whose insensitive hosts Vampire Greg and Steve Strange trash Adam’s latest movie “The Blackest Moon.” Adam’s supportive girlfriend Kate repeatedly tries comforting Adam with reassuring encouragement, but Adam remains troubled by the perception of being a failure.

Adam experiences a vivid nightmare where a killer in a disturbing baby mask murders Kate in their bed with an ax. Amused by Adam’s retelling of the dream, Kate suggests using it as inspiration to write a slasher film. Initially believing the subgenre is beneath him, Adam grows excited about possibly developing a horror franchise with a marketable villain.

Adam becomes confused by slash marks found on the blanket Kate was using. Meeting at a coffee shop, Adam confides in his friend James about the dream sparking a slasher screenplay, but also being unsettled by the slashed blanket. James passes it off as a coincidence as he encourages Adam to pursue his idea for creating a killer “baby man.”

After James leaves, Adam seems to see the message “Big Baby was here” written in blood on the coffee shop’s bathroom mirror. Upon exiting the bathroom, Adam overhears podcasters Vampire Greg and Steve Strange talking at a table. Adam initiates a conversation that turns confrontational before Adam throws his cup of coffee on the duo and walks away.

After settling on the title “Big Baby” for his script, Adam has a dream in which a boy dripping wet appears in Adam’s bedroom to recount how childhood bullies mocked his fear of swimming by calling him a “Big Baby.” Someone pushed the boy in a pool. He sank and when he was pulled out, his brain was half gone. Although he would never be normal again, the boy eventually grew strong enough to take revenge by killing all of his tormenters.

Adam asks Kate to read his newly written pages that cover Big Baby’s origin. Kate questions if getting pushed into a pool is a strong enough motivation. Frustrated by her criticism, Adam accuses Kate of not understanding his story. Adam contends he is trying to explore the question of when vengeance is justified and if a murderer can ever be sympathetic.

Adam writes a scene that takes place in a novelty shop. Remembering the “Big Baby” taunts, the adult Big Baby fixates on a contorted mask of a crying baby’s face in the scene.

Kate pranks Adam by surprising him with a grotesque baby mask she brought home from a costume store. Adam finds it strange that the mask’s arrival coincides with him having just written that scene for his screenplay.

Adam makes a nighttime run to a convenience store. Inexplicably fascinated by a young woman also at the store, Adam follows her into a nearby alleyway. Adam is horrified when he witnesses Big Baby violently hacking the woman to death with his ax.

In a state of shock, Adam rushes home to Kate. Recounting what he seemingly saw, Adam declares Big Baby is real. Unsure what to believe, Kate asks Adam to take her to the alley. Adam does, but they find no evidence that a bloody murder took place there. Adam wonders if writing about Big Baby somehow made him real. Concerned for her boyfriend’s mental wellbeing, Kate suggests that he pause his script writing. Adam agrees.

Weeks later, Adam and Kate host a dinner for James and his girlfriend Patrice. James asks about the “Big Baby” script, which makes Adam and Kate uncomfortable. James also mentions the slashed blanket, which Adam never told Kate about. After James and Patrice leave, Kate asks Adam to explain about the blanket he replaced, causing Adam’s temper to flare once again.

Big Baby seemingly stalks Adam and Kate while they sleep in the same bed together. Adam wakes to see Big Baby sitting on his side of the bed. Insisting she is an obstacle in their way, Big Baby tells Adam that Kate doesn’t want him to succeed. Adam asks Big Baby to promise he won’t hurt Kate. Big Baby responds that he’ll consider leaving Kate alone if Adam continues writing the screenplay so everyone who tormented Big Baby can suffer and die. Kate worries when she sees Adam talking to himself.

Adam wakes in the morning to discover Kate left him. A note on the fridge confirms Kate wants a break due to Adam’s bizarre behavior. Adam tries calling Kate, but his message goes to her voicemail.

A wet woman in a swimsuit shows up at Adam’s door insisting she needs to talk to him. The woman identifies herself as Amanda, the character from Adam’s script who pushed Big Baby into the pool when they were children. Amanda begs to be taken out of the story because she doesn’t want Big Baby to kill her. Amanda briefly vanishes, then reappears covered in blood and screaming before disappearing again.

Big Baby calls Adam from Kate’s phone. Big Baby tells Adam to finish his story or else Kate will die.

Thinking he can make his presumed hallucinations stop, Adam tries to delete the entire script from his laptop. Big Baby stops Adam by cutting his face with a knife.

Adam calls Kate with a frantic warning that Big Baby is real and she is in danger. Frightened by Adam’s claims, Kate refuses to reveal where she is. Adam insists he needs to finish his screenplay so everything can go back to normal. Kate has an emotional breakdown and hangs up.

Adam gets back to work on the script. Adam writes a scene where Big Baby kills a couple, Kenny and Julia, outside a bar.

Now staying at their place, Kate confides in James and Patrice about Adam’s apparent mental breakdown. James tells the women he doesn’t believe Adam would ever hurt Kate.

Adam writes another death scene where Big Baby butchers a mournful man named Graham in his bedroom. He then writes a scene where another couple, Theo and Nikki, is slaughtered.

James visits Adam to check on him. Seeing the wound on his friend’s face, James tells Adam he doesn’t seem like himself. Adam contends no one believes what’s really going on and he just wants to protect Kate. Adam also tries explaining how he is responsible for people dying, although he doesn’t understand exactly how his script makes events real. In telling Adam that Big Baby doesn’t exist, James inadvertently reveals that Kate is staying with him and Patrice. Threatening James with a knife, Adam vows he will be done soon and then everything will be fine.

After James leaves, Adam returns to his laptop to write a scene of Amanda swimming alone in her backyard pool at night. Big Baby starts savagely attacking until Amanda screams, “Wait!” Amanda then appears across the table from Adam. Begging for her life, Amanda tells Adam he can write whatever he wants and save her. She also warns Adam will become a killer like Big Baby if he continues. Ignoring her plea, Adam finishes writing the scene. Back at the pool, Big Baby dismembers and kills Amanda.

With his screenplay complete, Adam races to James and Patrice’s house demanding to see Kate. Adam forces his way inside.

Brandishing a knife to keep James and Patrice away, Adam pulls Kate into a bedroom for a private conversation. Crying, Kate questions what they are supposed to do about their broken relationship now. Adam again claims Big Baby is real, although he still doesn’t know how the killer escaped his mind. Kate tells Adam he is imagining things.

Adam tells Kate it is too late for her to help him, but he now sees a way to make the ordeal stop. Speaking out loud, Adam “writes” a scene where Big Baby emerges from the shadows to attack him. Shocked to see Big Baby physically materialize in the room, Kate screams as Big Baby murders Adam with his ax.

James and Patrice break into the bedroom to find Adam dead and Kate covered in blood while clutching the knife. Despite how the scene looks, Kate insists it was Big Baby who killed Adam.

In a post-credits scene, Big Baby stalks the two podcasters who repeatedly insulted Adam on their show and in person.

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Review:

Now that end credits are over, I can’t even remember why I chose to watch “Big Baby.” Couching my words carefully, let’s start by noting that the movie’s distributor isn’t exactly a brand name for high-quality horror. With “Big Baby” being his fourth full-length movie, writer/director Spider One doesn’t exactly have a strong track record for producing horror hits either. His debut feature, the anthology “Allegoria” (review here), was so exhaustingly shabby, I didn’t even bother with the films that followed, “Bury the Bride” and “Little Bites.” Going by the 4.X user scores those titles netted on IMDb, it’s easy to understand why I also didn’t hear anyone say boo about them.

In spite of this evidence, I still decided to give “Big Baby” a go. I wouldn’t say that was a completely regrettable call. I would, however, say this serves as a reminder to pay attention to warning signs before settling on something to watch, especially when I’m one of the people who put up those signs in the first place.

A common slasher mixed with an equally common “is he crazy or not?” plot, “Big Baby” centers on Adam, a struggling screenwriter teetering on the edge of a breakdown. Adam receives an enormous amount of encouragement from his incredibly supportive girlfriend Kate, yet he doesn’t hear her positive reinforcement as loudly as he hears the dismissive insults from a pair of obnoxious podcasters trashing his latest movie.

Acting on a suggestion from Kate, Adam uses a disturbing nightmare about a masked ax murderer as inspiration for a new script. Adam hasn’t been this excited by a screenplay idea in a long time. But the more he writes scenes of his villain bloodily butchering victims, the more Adam seemingly sees those same events mirrored in reality. Kate worries Adam may be losing his mind. Adam fears the fictional killer he created might have somehow become real.

“Big Baby” could have been easier to toss into the bottomless bin of forgettable fright fare if not for Brandon Scott’s remarkably ranged portrayal of Adam. The standard disclaimer applies for whenever we’re talking about acting in VOD, DTV, DIY, or any type of three-letter indie. In other words, Scott doesn’t need to reserve shelf space for gold statues. But his performance is far above what a filmmaker’s family member, a washed-up former star out for an easy buck, or a no-name who’ll never do another movie typically phones in for these things.

Brandon Scott plays Adam with an impressive amount of believability. His hands tense up and shake with expressive anxiety when Adam grows angry, which is frequently. Adam’s defensive reactions feel fitting for a frustrated personality fed up with rejection and people misunderstanding his material. Scott clearly considered what to do with his body and which words to inflect with emphatic emotion so Adam comes across as an authentic reflection of a creative professional having great difficulty dealing with failure.

The problem with Adam’s presentation is his oil doesn’t mix well with Krsy Fox’s water as Adam’s girlfriend Kate. Her perpetually chipper demeanor comes on strong through excessive smiling that Adam’s often irritated/irritating behavior doesn’t deserve. Their chemistry comes out clunky as a result, like they’re casual friends who are pleasant toward one another at best, not committed lovers who’ve been together a long time. Adam gets off the hook a little since his obsession with work is meant to make him distracted. Kate just seems like she’s trying too hard, but that extra effort comes from an out-of-synch actor rather than her character.

Awkward interactions further redden their sore-thumb pairing. One scene has Adam throwing a fit when Kate tries calming him by offhandedly saying, “So what if you never win an Academy Award” with no ill intent. It’s difficult to stay on Adam’s side when he’s obviously unrealistic about his career, then flies off the handle at someone softly adding a reality check to her reassurance. “Big Baby” may only intend to illustrate Adam’s insecurities, but the script doesn’t seem to realize how his misdirected outrage makes him unappealing to an audience that needs to attach to his turmoil.

A bigger issue is Spider One can’t seem to stop staging his movie according to filmmaking basics from an outdated textbook. “Big Baby” wears its low budget on both sleeves, with one of those arms being uninteresting blocking and the other being details that constantly scream, “You’re watching a movie.”

Almost always, the camera simply points straight ahead, with centered actors turning their heads only slightly so their eyes don’t look directly into the lens. Two-shots put people in profile like the camera is merely a meaningless recording device rather than an integral creative tool. Then there are garish lighting accents, such as bright green splashing on the killer or a purple party gel decorating a single room in a house, treating the location as a film set instead of as a home where real people could actually live.

Making anything look lived in isn’t “Big Baby’s” strong suit at all. When Adam and Kate come down for morning breakfast, he’s wearing plaid pajama pants and a grey t-shirt from a Hanes three-pack. Meanwhile, Kate is fresh out of bed with a full face of makeup and hair styled like she stepped out of a salon.

They also aren’t directed to convincingly move their way through a scene. During a dinner conversation, Adam and Kate repeatedly stab chopsticks into their takeout, yet only one of them slurps a single noodle. When they have glasses in their hands, they sip without putting any liquid in their mouths. These are actors poking at props, preoccupied by considering continuity, not characters building an immersive environment.

“Big Baby” can’t be taken seriously anyway since its titular killer seems so ridiculous. Every time he appears, covered in blood and growling something menacing while an ominous audio sting hits, there’s an instant urge to laugh at how silly he looks with a bulbous baby’s head contorted into a goofily grotesque gape. It’s tough to tell if “Big Baby” did this deliberately for a feeling of fun or maybe as some meta-commentary on slasher icons, or if clueless designers obliviously believed he looked creepily cool.

The only indication of intentional humor being a possibility is “Big Baby” taking a few other questionable stabs at levity. In a scene that takes place within the script Adam writes, Chaz Bono appears as a man saying bedtime prayers for his dead cat Mr. Tinkles while asking Jesus for another season of “Battlestar Galactica,” a series that ended in 2009. Maybe think of a timelier reference if you want to land a joke about him being a sci-fi nerd?

With Chaz Bono’s cameo, it’s not a complete surprise that his mother Cher is credited as an executive producer. I’d bet dollars to donuts Cher never watched a single minute of this movie, though imagining her reaction when she saw what was made with her name is far more entertaining than the film itself.

NOTE: There is a post-credits scene.

Review Score: 40

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